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Mr Hockey said the coalition would respond to the PEFO, to be released by Treasury and Finance 10 days after the writs to dissolve parliament are handed down on April 12, rather than the budget signed off by Treasurer Wayne Swan.

Mr Abbott, in Adelaide for the start of the annual Pollie Pedal charity ride on Sunday, said the current government would never return a budget surplus because it always overestimated revenue but underestimated its spending.

He said one example was the carbon tax, which would leave a multi-billion-dollar budget black hole when Australia joined the European emissions trading scheme in 2015.

The Australian carbon price, and household compensation tied to it, was projected at $29-a-tonne in 2012, but the current European market price was less than $4-a-tonne.

"The spending is certain, but the revenue is uncertain," Mr Abbott told reporters in Adelaide on Friday.

However, Mr Abbott is coming under increasing pressure over his promised paid parental leave scheme, which he described as the coalition's "signature policy" that would be implemented in the first term of government.

He said it would be fully funded by a modest levy on the country's 3000 largest businesses.

"I hope that levy can be offset by an appropriate cut in the company tax rate," Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott has become vague during the past week on the timing of a budget surplus and a previously promised corporate tax cut.

But he conceded on Adelaide commercial radio 5AA that he expected business would pass on the cost of the levy, as they usually do.

"It is no wonder that peak industry bodies like the Business Council of Australia think Tony Abbott's scheme 'defies economic sense'," Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury said in a statement.

Meanwhile, a report commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia criticised both sides of politics for having "frittered away" windfall tax receipts worth $160 billion from the commodity boom in the eight years up to 2011/12.

To fix the budget, the Macroeconomics report calls for a review of commonwealth spending, the combining of welfare payments, a $15 billion one-off spending cut, and setting the budget on the path to structural balance over the medium term.